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For Ratty, life was a succession of lazy days on the water during which the closest thing to exercise was embodied in the maxim: “There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats.”

Fans of The Wind in the Willows might be shocked to learn, though, that according to scientists, Ratty, a water vole, is not a wholly accurate representation of his species. Or, at least, not when it is looking for love. Ecologists from the University of Aberdeen have tracked Scotland’s amorous water voles and found to their surprise that when the